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ISSN 2150-1076
Volume #1 Issue # 4 October, 2012
International School of
Management
“Trends in
International
Management”
ISM Journal of International Business
Volume 1, Issue 4; ISSN 2150-1076
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Table of Contents
Management from a Systemic Perspective – Sara Sadvandi
Bank Branch Restructuring: Effective Change Management Tool
– Henry Ajagbawa
Five Star Management Practices in the Kenyan Mobile
Telecommunications Industry – Patricia Murugami
Applying Project Management Approaches To Achieve Value
Creation In Post - Acquisition Integration – Reena Patel
The Path to Five Star Management – “A Retail”- Julian J. Rossig
Optimizing Product Development Projects - IFI Inc.: a Case Study
in the Food and Beverage Industry – Fashad Sarmad
Cross-Functional Teams for Corporate Entrepreneurship
Practices – Shawkat Ferdousi
Symphonic Leadership: A Model for the Global Business
Environment – Salvatore Snaiderbaur
Management from a Systemic Perspective
Sara Sadvandi
Doctorate of Business Administration student, International school
of management (ISM)
Email:
The ISM Journal of International Business
ISSN 2150-1076, Volume 1, Issue 4, October 2012.
Introduction
A system is an integrated set of dependent or interrelated components, routines, methods or processes
that accomplish an overall goal. System is usually made up of numerous sub systems with different range
of complexity. Almost every, man-made system in the cadre of complex projects covers a wide range of
activities, which require know-how transmission between people and disciplines working in different
domains. Thus harmonization and integration of the involved disciplines such as science, engineering,
human resource and finance, necessitates an efficient management. The project manager often faces
complex situations involving multiple actors and stakes; this implies the trade-off analysis based on
multiple criteria (system maintenance, component performance, price, availability etc.).
System complexity is usually due to the recursive intricacy and the interactions between the subsystems.
However, human behaviour makes a system far more complex and complicated due to its uncertainty.
Since management is mainly based on human behaviour and ethics, the outcome is often unpredictable:
actors usually don‘t have the holistic view that enables understanding of the situation and taking into
account all the factors and elements that can impact the management process. Moreover, management
objectives might be influenced by irrational or emotional aspects of the human psychology. As a result,
the increased complexity of the process is due to several factors such as the number of participants, the
influence of context elements, reciprocal visibility over the participants ‘objectives, interests or
constraints, sustainable relation between actors.
This article proposes a formalization of the management process, analyzed with a systems approach, by
taking into account managing of the actors and the participants in a given context and evaluating
different scenarios.
With careful observation and formalization of all aspects of management, a systems approach allows
handling the complexity of the management process in an optimal way, by offering more appropriate
means for understanding complex problems - through contextual, holistic views, but combined with a
decomposition approach for detail apprehension. At the same time it is based on the fact that different
actors may have different viewpoints on the problem and the solution includes successful orchestration
of the process by integration of these different viewpoints. This systems approach is based on a
simplification of the management process, in order to ensure a global and structured understanding of
the whole process.
This article emphasizes on the complexity of the management process by describing our approach to
understanding the different layers of a system, applied to a project management. Then it describes the
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The ISM Journal of International Business
ISSN 2150-1076, Volume 1, Issue 4, October 2012.
paradigm of management process and identifies the interactions. As in any other system, the increased
complexity of management is induced by the increased number of possible scenarios, uncertainty and
information. The goal of this systems approach is to greatly improve understanding the potential
scenarios and the relation to constraints coming from the environment, to the objectives of each actor,
as well as to the optimal decisions taken in the course of the dynamicity of the management process.
Several levels (layers) in a system are identified, and analyzed each dimension, taking into consideration
the perception (point of view) of each actor. It is expected that this approach could be used for any
project, but the analysis order (the order in which system layers were analyzed) might be different from
a project to another. Different methods and techniques could be applied in each layer of abstraction,
and some useful methods for each level are proposed.
The systems approach
As different aspects become too complex for the mind to easily understand or operate with, different
approaches are possible in order to better understand a complex system [3], [4]. Three concepts hav e
been taken into account in this systemic method: abstraction level, decomposition level, and point of
views [8].
- Abstraction: holistic view of the system that is relative to both the level of detail through
decomposition and the type of information captured. The analysis is based on the principle that each
layer has an impact on lower layers, but one does not need to consider these layers to understand a
general phenomenon or one that is possible only in certain conditions.
- Decomposition: isolate system components for a detailed analysis, given that all information of
the context of the analysed component is regarded.
- Perception: the point of view of each actor that limits or filters the available information, it
allows building different models or representations of the problem. In the case of project management
each actor has a different perspective of the situation.
While abstraction level allows the observer to have a holistic view of a system but in respect to different
aspects that shall be describe further, the level of decomposition partitions the problem space and
allows a localized understanding of the different components of a system[1], [2]. As each person
understands a given problem in his/her particular manner, it is of common sense that we can analyse a
system from different points of view that are perfectly coherent with each other.
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The ISM Journal of International Business
ISSN 2150-1076, Volume 1, Issue 4, October 2012.
Layers of abstraction:
Structural layer: characterize the form of the physical elements of the system, including actors.
Actors, in turn, may be represented by persons, organizations, nation states etc. The same
applies for identifying the structures that are in interaction with the system.
Dynamical layer: characterize changes over time, as well as time-based properties such as
milestones in project.
Behavioural layer: relate to the emergent behaviours of actors resulting from the evolution and
dynamism of the process. Behaviour is influenced, led by, steered by the elements in the
decisional layer.
Decisional layer: any decision that has an impact on the overall system, and in consequence
future evolution of the process or the following scenario. In technical systems where control
physical process is required, decisions may come in the form of a control system, but in this case
decisions are taken by the actors involved in the process of system. This renders the situation
more complex since none has global knowledge of the other‘s intentions, so the following steps
may be characterized by a certain level of uncertainty.
Conceptual layer: represents the major lines of the process. It reduces the space of the possible
scenarios or actions by defining basic rules or constraints. The concept refers to the core
elements supporting the actions within the system. For example social systems require
communication, but some means of communication can require a certain level of formalism, and
others can allow freedom of expression and make the communication skills of the participants a
real asset.
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The ISM Journal of International Business
ISSN 2150-1076, Volume 1, Issue 4, October 2012.
Point of View
Perception
Conceptual
Decisional
Dynamical interactions
Behavioral
Structural
Level of detail Paradigm Level of abstraction
Figure 1 Characterization of complex systems aspects
The figure 1 presents the three different concepts that we take into account in a system‘s analysis. The
upper levels of abstraction have an impact over the lower levels, so visibility and understanding of the
system in respect to an upper level, does not require understanding of effects on lower levels. For
example the system behavior will have an impact of its structure, in respect to a systems design, but the
opposite is not true, unless we are outside the process of design. Global decisions can steer the systems
interactions and induce a different behavior. At the same time the system is designed in respect to
certain concepts. For example project management is viewed as a communication process where
constraints and objectives are adjusted in order to reach overall satisfaction; in consequence the
communication‖ is one of the core concepts [8].
Integrated Management domain
The main project management domain coming from ISO 15288[16] and ISO 9001:2000 [17] are grouped
as follow:
Holistic Project Management covers: Environment Process Management, Technical Process Management
and Procurement Process Management.
Project Monitoring & Control covers: Configuration Management, Cost (or financial) Management
Quality, Risk Management, Quality Management.
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The ISM Journal of International Business
ISSN 2150-1076, Volume 1, Issue 4, October 2012.
Project Support covers: Document and Information Management, Human Resource Management,
Knowledge Management, ICT (information and communication technology) Management, development
and Implementation life cycle Management, Verification and Validation.
Project management scope represents the triangle interaction of time, budget and quality constrains.
Generally the goal of the intended project is to complete on schedule (time), under the predefined
budget (money) and meet the requirement (quality) scope. In this triangle relationship, the parameters
are scarce resources; it means they have to be considered in interaction with each other. So these
parameters have to be taken into account in whole project domains. For example the activities, within
the project management, are defined to achieve an aimed quality where they may be related to risks.
Beside the unmanaged or unplanned events or process cause the risks that produce the variants in terms
of time, quality and money [7].
As it is mentioned in the figure 2, the environment process deals with the legal acceptance of the system
within its physical environment by the stakeholders, the specified quality, time, money and risk criteria.
The environmental processes transfer the stakeholder requirements and the result of agreements or
negotiations to the technical process management. The technical process management assists the
environmental process management in all phases of project. The context and the conditions are
specified by procurement management by considering the predefined requirements and needs in the
Technical process management, indeed the design and the contracting authority produced by market
players. The technical process involves project management and control interface.
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